Faced with a growing political storm over the French economy, immigration problems and a dramatic reduction of tourism from the ongoing Covid-19 global crisis, 43-year-old French President Emmanuel Macron went ballistic when Australia cancelled its 2016 $48 billion diesel-electric powered submarine contract. Australia Prime Minister Scott Morrison, 53, told Macron at a lengthy June dinner meeting in Paris that the sub contract was in jeopardy because diesel-fired subs didn’t meet Australia’s needs as part of a new security arrangement in the Indo-Pacific region. Needing to travel long distances to patrol the South Pacific and the South China Sea, Morrison told Macron the sub contract was not in Australia’s naval interests. Yet when Australia announced Sept. 17 the cancellation, the French government claimed they were blindsided. Macron simply didn’t want the political uproar to follow.
Since coming to power May 14, 2017 in a bitterly contested election with 53-year-old far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, Macron has been on shaky ground, trying to patch up the French socialist government with spit-and-hewing gum. Racked by high taxes and soaring energy prices with growing problems in immigrant communities, there’s widespread unhappiness with Macron’s rule. So when Morrison announced Sept. 17 that Australia would cancel the submarine contract, it embarrassed Macron and his government ministers. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian went ballistic, accusing Australia and the U.S. of “stabbing France in the back.” If Macron hid Morrison’s concerns about the sub contract, it was avoiding the political fallout that followed quickly from the announcement. France was embarrassed on the global stage because it lacks nuclear capability.
If Macron’s government falls, Le Drian and Defense Minister Florence Parly lose their jobs, something that could very well happen. Recalling the U.S. and Australian ambassadors is an outrageous ploy by Macron to save his political hide, when he knew the sub deal wasn’t meeting Australia’s needs. “The capability that the Attack class submarines were going to provide us was not what Australia need to protect our sovereign interests,” Morrison said, in response to the decision to cancel the French sub contract. Macron did everything possible to hide the emerging debacle to protect his backside from the political firestorm stemming from the public humiliation. Apart from the lost of jobs and a $48 billion contract for the French economy, Morrison exposed France’s outmoded technology that bans nuclear-powered submarines and ships due to European Union rules.
France, like other EU countries are swept up in the environmental extremism that attempted to ban safe, clean and scientifically sophisticate nuclear power, especially in its ship building industry. Morrison explained that Australia joined a security “quad” including the U.S., U.K., Japan and India to deal with growing aggression by China to dominate the Pacific Rim, bullying other countries by building military installations in international waters. France knows all about China’s aggressive activity in the South China Sea, something the International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled against China Juily 12, 2016. Recent threats by China against Taiwan prompted the U.S. to lead a security partnership in the Indo-Pacific that includes Australia. Morrison made in clear to Marcon in June that the diesel-fired French submarines would not suffice with Australia’s new naval needs for long-range capability.
Calling the Australian and U.S. decision “duplicity, disdain and lies,” France’s chief diplomat, Le Drian, directed all his ire at the U.S. and Australia, not at Macron for not disclosing Morrison’s concerns. Le Drian should direct his outrage toward Macron for keeping his conversation with Morrison secret. “The would have had e very reason to know that we have deep and grave concerns that the capability being delivered by the Attack class submarines was not going to meet our strategic interests and we have made very clear that we would be making a decision based on our strategic national interests,” Morrison said. Macron has no one to blame but himself for failing to inform his government that the sub contract would be voided by Australia. France was publicly humiliated because it exposes to the world that doesn’t produce state-of-the-art technology needed in today’s world.
Macron kept secret from his own Cabinet Australia’s decision to cancel the sub contract because of the political fallout. Hanging by a thread politically, Macron and his government can only point fingers at the U.S. and Australia for undermining France, when, in fact, Macron was given plenty of notice. China’s aggression in the Pacific Rim, bullying many of its neighbors and recently threatening to take over Taiwan, prompted the “quad” to take action. Australia simply can’t patrol long distances without refueling with the French-made, diesel, Attack-class submarines. China, Russia and Iran, with their new security alliance, won’t be happy with the U.S. decision to extend its nuclear-powered submarine fleet to Australia. U.S. defense officials know there’s a big gap today leaving Taiwan vulnerable to a Chinese attack. Australia won’t see its first nuclear-powered submarines until 2040.
